I still see influencer advertising in a better light than a brand's own ads.
Influencers, especially the more popular ones, help inform consumers about a product/service/experience.
The only thing an influencer has is their followers and most influencers really are careful to not advertise products that they don't believe in themselves.
I explicitly don’t trust influencers because all they have are their followers. They often have no credentials or real achievements or original thoughts, so why should I trust them? Especially given that their entire goal is to get people to follow and like them?
I see this pattern a lot in coder twitter. The people with big follower counts that are always tweeting about their amazing coding and love of software development are not the ones building stuff. Even if their feelings are genuine, the excessive self promotion is quite ugly and makes me doubt everything they say. They are not people I want to trust or follow or listen to
Simply put, influencers who don't have credentials or achievements may not be the right influencers for your business.
Finding people who are well-respected in their space, actively create high-value content for their audiences, and can find ways to organically share a brands message are where the real value lies. Combined with trackable promotions, this can be very effective when executed properly.
The influencers get the product for free, otherwise they would not post. This is not people 'believing in a product', it is people using leverage to sell advertising for which they are paid with the product.
influencers are very selective with their 'reviews' and may chose to leave out things like data-privacy policies, when reviewing a company that provides you DNA analysis -- which should make you question all the information you get from such sources
Influencers, especially the more popular ones, help inform consumers about a product/service/experience.
The only thing an influencer has is their followers and most influencers really are careful to not advertise products that they don't believe in themselves.